Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure from senior women in the Labour Party to ensure Matthew Doyle, the former No 10 director of communications, is stripped of his peerage for his links to a convicted paedophile.
Doyle, who was ennobled on January 8, has already had the Labour whip withdrawn, meaning he sits as an independent in the upper chamber.
Now furious Labour women want Starmer to act faster to strip him of his title, which currently can only be taken away if Doyle resigns from the House of Lords.
Labour’s Deputy Leader Lucy Powell and Party Chairman Anna Turley have both called for Doyle to be stripped of his peerage after he campaigned for a councillor who had been charged but not convicted with having indecent images of children.
Call to bring in bill to ‘hoof out the wrong uns’
But despite the barrage of calls for Doyle to be prevailed upon to quit the Lords, peers warned it was unlikely to happen.
A Labour peer told The i Paper: “With the whip withdrawn I’m guessing the leverage from Labour is weak. If I were him, I would resign as it is one of those narratives whose ending we already know.”
A second peer added: “The issue is very hot and clearly people want blood and if you’re Matthew your reputation has been completely trashed because of his association with a paedophile, but do you want to be the one who is turfed out for the first time in a hundred years because you maintained a friendship with someone after they were convicted?
“That is a brutal option when you consider all the people who haven’t been kicked out of the House of Lords. He would effectively be saying: ‘I am the worst person in the House of Lords for 100 years,” the peer added.
The introduction of Lord Matthew Doyle to the House of Lords, earlier this month.Photographer: House of Lords/UK ParliamentSource: PAA minister told The i Paper that the issue wasn’t limited to recent events.
“We need a much wider bill in the Lords to allow a mechanism to hoof out all the wrong ‘uns. It could be called the Wrong ‘Uns Bill,” they said.
Peerage ‘sends out wrong signals’
On Wednesday evening Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told ITV’s Peston: “I don’t think (the peerage) should have been awarded in the first place. I don’t think I’m the only person who thinks that, by the way. I think the prime minister shares that view.
“But I really think it sends out all the wrong signals to the country and to victims and survivors of sexual abuse, particularly where it involves children,” she added.
And in a further intervention with an interview with the Guardian Nandy also seemed to criticise the Prime Minister saying: “You know he is an actual person? You can’t revamp a person.”
While insisting she supported the PM she added: “We’ve got to behave like the country we want to see. We want a country where people listen to one another, understand one another. We want a country where women are treated properly, with real respect and power.”
On Wednesday Starmer was warned by female Labour MPs the party risks looking like a “paedo protectors’ party”.
In a private meeting, Emma Lewell told Starmer about her anger, having spent years working in child protection services.
She said: “I can’t even begin to explain how much it hurts when people are screaming at me in the street that I am a member of the ‘paedo protectors party’,” according to sources who attended the meeting.
On Tuesday, Doyle issued a statement, saying: “At the point of my campaigning support, Morton repeatedly asserted to all those who knew him his innocence, including initially in court.”
He added: “To have not ceased support ahead of a judicial conclusion was a clear error of judgement for which I apologise unreservedly.”
Starmer remains under pressure
The prime minister is facing continued questions over his judgment for appointing Doyle to the Lords.
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Starmer insists Doyle had “failed to give a full account of his actions” and had not disclosed he had campaigned for Morton in 2017.
Starmer stood by his decision to ennoble Doyle for more than six weeks after he had been made aware he’d campaigned for Morton.
Peter Mandelson, facing a police investigation over whether as a Cabinet minister he leaked market sensitive information to late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, was prevailed upon to quit the Lords. But deposing Doyle is less clear cut.
On Thursday, Chris Ward, a Cabinet Office minister and ally of Starmer, told the House of Commons, “The Government is looking at legislation that looks at the broader question of how you remove people from the Lords rather than just in a specific case. So, it will be broad legislation and the sooner it comes to the House…”
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